


Icarus Ascending

by Ohtze



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, F/M, Horror, Kidnapping, Mystery, Psychological, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:16:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6071860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohtze/pseuds/Ohtze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Starkiller, the final fight skews sideways. Kylo becomes too attached to Rey, and in a desperate attempt to keep her out of Snoke’s clutches, he kidnaps the girl and flees into the Unknown Region of the Galaxy. Rey wants nothing to do with him, but Kylo’s brittle and backed into a corner. Words are said. Crypts are opened. An introspection on abandonment, and the slow descent into madness. Definitely AUish. No longer on hiatus!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Drop

**Author's Note:**

> **A word of warning:** Story's rated M, as always. By now long-term readers should be familiar with what that entails (violence, mature themes, etc.). For new readers: the tags on my stories are accurate, and my stories are dark. Here's your only warning.
> 
> **Disclaimer:** This fanwork is intended for personal, non-commercial use only. All creative works off which this fanwork are based are the property of their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Revised October 23, 2017

For as long as she could remember, Rey had been hungry.

There were memories there, buried deep down in her childhood; so far back and under so much sand they were basically impressions of the wind and nothing more. Ghosts of the desert, those winds were. Warm winds, that told her things hadn’t always been this way—starving, both for affection and food—but the memories were so small and tenuous they were almost negligible. Most times, she ignored them. Life was easier when you did, and moved along quicker.

Rey had been hungry since the stars had been born. She’d been abandoned on the endless, arid wastes of Jakku, and for her, hunger had become a state of being. It was a mindset, where one lived their days from one moment to the next. Never taking anything for granted, gobbling down whatever scraps came your way. _A scavenger’s mindset_ , they said on Jakku— _bakka ja thu_ , in the local tongue—and Rey had come to terms with it. She’d come to terms with a lot of things in life. Scavenging was just what she did, and shame was a foreign concept. She didn’t have the time nor the resources to devote to such a luxury. All her brainpower simply went towards surviving.

Waiting. Waiting and surviving was what Rey did, and for what seemed like ages she’d lingered on the edge of the Western Reaches, clinging to half-remembered promises as she’d fought off a growing sensation of _loss_. Time got jumbled out on the wastes, and the only way she remembered that it was passing at all was through the marks on her wall, the tallies scratched out in white. Endless, they were, one after another; like grains of sand in a desert.

There was a memory of hers that came to mind more frequently these days, of an incident several months prior to finding BB-8 and Finn. Rey had gone to the Niima Outpost first thing in the morning, and the junkyards had been busy. Several small-to-mid-sized freighters had landed in the settlement to unload supplies and pick up spare parts, and Rey had possessed the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time to see them intermingle. The freighters had been the highlight of her month, and probably one of the best things she’d seen all year. Nothing changed on Jakku, except the monotony grew more monotonous and the sands shifted deeper. Unkar Plutt grew stingier. So maybe it had been misfortune that she’d been in Niima that morning, and not luck. Misfortune peppered a lot of Rey’s life, mixed with determination, but she didn’t like to think about it in such a manner. Always, she tried to be **hopeful**. The freighters were part of this.

She’d liked the noise and the chaos in Niima that day; the intense heat of the star hadn’t been so bad when she walked beneath the faded brown tarps, and the local junkers had been so busy bartering goods to pay for much-needed supplies that they hadn’t told her to scatter.

Rey was a friendly person. Self-sufficient and extremely wary, to be sure, but she liked being around others. She loved hearing voices and seeing people smile. The memory of warm hands on her face and a strong, encompassing hug bloomed like the light within her childhood recollections, mingled with the sensation of someone much taller than her picking her up as they balanced her atop their shoulders.

It’d been so long since she’d had an iota of affection that Rey had been starved for it. As she’d walked, there’d been the _clang_ and _whirr_ of hovering transports sliding down ramps from freighters as they unloaded their goods into the junkyards; the clatter of spare parts hanging from nets and the _blipping_ of droids skittering in between luggabeasts like steelpeckers. Not far off there was the nasally, baritone snort of a raider’s bantha, its giant feet shaking the ground as it ambled towards the watering trough.

Rey had shielded her eyes from the glare of the star, her right hand clenched tight around her staff. Her booted feet had slipped through the coarse, warm sands of Jakku as she’d cautiously made her way forward. Unkar had disappeared into the back of his shop, and so had his goons, so the only unpleasant thing about that morning had been the smell of the food. At a nearby shop, one of the merchants had been cooking a meal, their wok sizzling with the heat as they tossed what looked like some sort of ginger root and long white _paka worms_ together.

Rey had been forced to cover her nose with a scarf and press a thin, trembling hand to her mouth to stop herself from gagging with hunger. She never stole unless she had to—she knew what it was like to have so little—but it had been a bad couple days before that, at least when it came to scavenging. The parts she’d brought back had been no good, Unkar had said, so he’d given her nothing. Rey had been made to return to her half-buried Walker, belt tightened and hungry. The next day had been much the same, and she’d been forced to return even hungrier.

Always, Rey had been thin, but in those final months before she’d met BB-8, her rations had been cut down to such a point that thinness had essentially become a defining characteristic: an unsettling tiny-ness that was noticeable. Her hands were small, but if she put those same hands on either side of her waist and spread her fingers, she could almost span it. That day in Niima, Rey’s belt had been wrapped three times around her middle, and her insides felt felt hollow. There’d been the zing of stomach acid in her mouth, rising up her gorge after she’d smelt the wok, and all day she’d been feeling faint because of it; the heat was affecting her more than usual. She’d been too hungry to sleep and forget.

Up ahead, Rey spied a light freighter. A smuggler’s it looked like, long and rectangular with a wide nose and a fat hull made for hauling ore and spice. Smoke had been rising out of its forward ventilation chambers, and the main docking bay to its cargo hold had been opened, the ramp leading up to it sticking out like a metallic tongue. There’d been Gamorrean smugglers gathered around the smoking chamber, grunting to one another as they’d pointed at the mess. A repair droid had bleeped piteously, trying to zoom in close to get a better look, but it was unsuccessful.

Rey had grown up salivating over stories of the _Millennium Falcon_. She loved ships, and was handy with them, and dreams of escape through the hum of a Hyperdrive had eventually becoming a lifelong obsession. Rey hadn’t flown any **true** ships before—at least into orbit—but engines had always been her thing. Her insatiable curiosity had peaked.

From the color of the smoke and the sparks flying out of it, Rey had assumed it was the auxiliary drive that had broken. Unkar didn’t like her interfering with outsiders, and he hated it when she messed with their ships, but he’d been gone that day and Rey couldn’t resist.

She hadn’t planned on interacting with the inhabitants of the freighter too much. She’d planned on skirting around the edges for a bit—maybe listening in on a convo or two to find out what was happening with the rest of the galaxy—before heading back. Her arms had wrapped around her narrow waist to try to stave off the feeling on unending hunger.

As she’d neared, the fat-bellied freighter had turned hulking: a good two-hundred feet long and at least fifty feet high around the middle. It was big enough that it had probably required a tug while breaching atmo. The ship was old, scorched by plasma fire. The words _Bmola Mazen_ — _Space Queen_ in Huttese—were written along the side of it. All in all, everything had looked normal about the smuggler’s transport. The Gamorreans hadn’t paid any attention to her as she’d neared, and as Rey had gotten close the repair droid had _bleeped_ , trying to swerve in to fix the busted component. It was pushed aside, and the machine wailed in despair. One of the Gamorreans turned and roared at it.

Rey had known how to fix the ship, but she didn’t want any trouble, so she’d bit her lip and stayed silent. She’d taken another step closer however, and then another, her thin feet sinking into the sand. When she was fifteen paces away from the repair crew beneath the shadow of the fat-bellied freighter, she heard the voice.

“Is there something wrong with my ship?” someone asked in Galactic Basic. Rey had turned around to see a Twi’lek standing behind her.

It was a female; tan like the sand with strange red speckles running down either side of her neck. Her lekku had been weighed down by a rather large, ornate headdress and a metallic-looking chain hung from her nose to her lip. The Twi’lek’s nails were long and black, but her crimson-colored robes were longer, pooling around her in waves. She’d had the look of _Other_ about her, and not because she wasn’t human. Rey had thought it might have been something about her eyes. They’d been cold, and distant, a pale shade of grey that was almost colorless.

“Oh no,” Rey had said, taking a step back from the Twi’lek and raising a hand. She waved it in front of herself self-deprecatingly. “The auxiliary drive is broken. I was just curious to see how they were going to fix it. I didn’t mean to get underfoot. Sorry.”

She’d taken another step backwards, intending to walk away, but the Twi’lek had spoken, tilting her head to observe her. Her Galactic Basic was smooth—almost bland—and oddly without accent.

“Can you fix it?” the Twi’lek had asked. A gust of wind had whistled through the junkyards, rustling her robes. When the crimson folds lifted, Rey had spied a hint of metal; a cylindrical object attached to a low-slung belt hanging off the Twi’lek’s hips. The sight of the metal object had tickled something at the back of her brain, but Rey hadn’t been able to place it, so she’d simply smiled and shrugged.

“Sure I can. It’s the drive itself—you’ll need to rip out the tertiary cables, then reroute it.”

“How much?” the Twi’lek had asked. It had taken Rey a moment to catch on.

“How much what?”

“How much do you charge?”

“Ten ration packs,” Rey said immediately. There was zero hesitation to her words. She’d known what she’d wanted, but the Twi’lek had scoffed and rolled her eyes at the request, turning towards the damaged ship. Her crimson robes had trailed in the tawny sand behind her.

“ **Only** ten?” she’d said, and she’d sounded amused. “Really, if you’re going to give it away for free, just say so.”

“Will you pay me more?” Rey had asked eagerly. She was hungry—always hungry—but she wasn’t greedy. She took what she could get. _Bakka ja thu_. The scavenger’s mindset.

“Fix my ship, and we’ll see.”

Rey hadn’t asked any questions after that, skipping alongside the Twi’lek with excitement. The promise of food did that to her.

The auxiliary drive was more busted than initially expected, and Rey had needed to use the droid for help, but she was determined and good with machines. Pulling her belt an extra notch or two tighter, she’d crawled inside the component and set to work; humming as she’d gotten into the guts of the ship and replaced certain parts with scavenged ones, while ripping out others entirely. The Twi’lek had stood just outside the hole in the ship, her head tilted as she’d eyed her. Her eyes had definitely been eerie, but Rey had thought the paleness of them was kind of nice. In her mind’s eye, Rey decided the stranger was some sort of fancy lady. A **really** fancy lady, from the Core Planets.

After some time, the Lady began talking to her again in her strange, colorless voice. “You’re a bit thin, child,” she said. The meaning behind her words had been obvious.

Rey had shrugged and smiled again as she continued fiddling with the ship, up to her elbows in grease and just happy to be talking to someone. Just happy to be busy. It kept her mind off the hunger.

“The Junkboss is feeding me fine,” she’d said, even though it was a lie. The Twi’lek would leave but Unkar would not, and if the Lady said anything to him—and she seemed the type, despite her smoothness—the blobfish would hurt her for spilling the info. Rey was friendly, but she wasn't an idiot.

“Hnh,” the Lady said. She hadn’t sounded like she believed Rey’s words in the slightest. Rey could read between the lines easy enough, and knew the Twi’lek was deeply displeased. She’d still chosen to ignore it.

After she got the drive working again, the Lady handed over sixteen ration packs instead of ten, causing Rey’s heart to beat with excitement.

“Thank you!” she’d gushed. The Twi’lek’s expression became unreadable, but she watched Rey’s face like a raptor.

Rey had washed off her hands with a bit of sand, then she’d sat down in the shade of the freighter, consuming three ration packs in one go. The repair droid had taken a liking to her, and as she ate it buzzed excited circles around her. Rey’s mind had blanked while she’d gorged herself on the food—she felt happier than she had in weeks, and being around people was wonderful—but as she did the Twi’lek had come and sat down across from her. She sat so close their knees were touching, gracefully lowering herself onto a metal crate like wind eddying over the sand.

Her crimson robes fluttered around her, her heavy headdress glittering in a stray beam of light. The Twi’lek folded her long-nailed hands in front of her and stared, watching Rey eat with an unfathomable expression. Her eyes were endless, and empty. Like the dark, deserted spaces between planets.

When Rey caught her staring, she smiled shyly through a mouthful of food. The Twi’lek’s tan-coloured lips pinched into a thin, unhappy line at her expression, her long black nails clicking together in agitation the longer she stared in her direction.

“How old are you?” the Lady demanded. Rey blinked a bit at the abruptness of the question, and its force.

“Nineteen,” she said, taking another bite of her rations. The Twi’lek _tched_.

“Nineteen,” she murmured in that smooth voice. “ **Only** nineteen.” Everything she said was so cryptic.

Rey shrugged, because she hadn’t known what else to do. What passing strangers thought of her had meant little before BB-8 rolled along, and until it had she’d been convinced that being unimportant—forgotten, alone, and abandoned—would be a constant. It was easier not to care about others when no one cared about you.

When Rey started chowing down on her third ration pack, the Twi’lek spoke again.

“You should not eat so fast,” she said. She seemed displeased. “You might choke. You are too thin.”

“Have to,” Rey mumbled through her food, not bothering to wipe the crumbs off her lips. “’dun know when I’ll get to eat again.”

Without warning the Twi’lek reached out, placing a sharp-nailed hand against her forehead, her palm flat. Rey stopped chewing, looking up, and for a second she’d basked in the warmth of another’s touch. Rey didn’t like strangers touching her, but she hadn’t minded the Lady too much. The hand had reminded her of her half-forgotten childhood: of somebody else so much taller than her. So did the _thrumming_ , and the dense, almost electric presence that pulsed along her skin from the Twi’lek’s fingertips.

For a brief, infinitesimal second, the Lady’s expression had been sad as she stared at her, her lekku weighed down with metal and gold. Her crimson robes had twined idly around her feet with the wind.

“Oh dear,” she’d murmured. Her gaze had been a million miles away. “The link is damaged. You poor thing.”

Rey had known others pitied her, and she hadn’t thought much of it—scavengers were at the bottom of the food chain, after all—but the expression in the Twi’lek’s eyes had been unsettling. Nothing changed on Jakku, except for this.

“What link?” she’d asked, but the Lady had drawn back, gathering the loose length of her robes in her lap and hiding her hands amongst them. She hadn’t answered the question.

“When you meet again, remember to breathe,” she said, standing up to tower over her. Rey had glared at her in confusion.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she’d asked, then an indignant. “I’m not going anywhere! I’m **waiting**.”

The Twi’lek looked down at her, and her smile had been cold. Strangely amused, almost, as if she were privy to some sort of inside joke that was horrible. “I know,” she said. They’d been talking about different things.

“What’s your name?” Rey had asked as the Lady walked away. The food had become less and less appetizing, and there was a tingle up her spine that she just couldn’t shake. The Twi’lek turned when she spoke, her expression the slightest bit predatory. When the light hit her eyes just right, the colorless grey seemed to darken to red.

“No one special,” she’d said. “A merchant, passing through.”

“Where are you going?”

The Twi’lek didn’t answer that question, either, and she didn’t even give her name. Half an hour later—after shoving her rations into her bag and scavenging along the junkyard for errant parts—Rey had left the market and headed home. She’d entered her walker, feeling tired and unusually achy. Once she’d hidden her rations away, she’d fallen asleep for the next eighteen hours. She had a hard time sleeping, so the fact that she **had** was a blessing. Good things were few and far between for her.

Rey hadn’t run into the Twi’lek again, and by the time BB-8 rolled around, she’d all but forgotten the Lady. She’d forgotten the Twi’lek’s words as she’d saved the droid. She’d forgotten the strange, colorless eyes that glinted red in the light as she escaped the First Order, and left the wastes of Jakku with Finn.

Rey had misplaced the sense of unease that tingled along her spine with the clicking of nails when she met Han Solo, and it was only when the Force Vision came to her—at Maz Kanata’s den—that she began to recall the incident, trickling back to her in bits and pieces.

Then, she’d made The Mistake. Rey had made several mistakes, and she realized this when she woke up in the belly of an Upsilon-class shuttle, cold and bruised and shivering.

She’d made the mistake of leaving Jakku; of leaving the _Millennium Falcon_ and Maz’s fort soon after. Rey had made the mistake of running into the forest, alone and angry, but her biggest transgression by far was staring at a Sith-in-Training just a little too long when she’d been strapped to an interrogation table. Of picking up that lightsaber and egging him on. She hadn’t shut her mouth when she should have.

How had she ended up in the ship? Where were they going? The last thing she remembered was the sith speaking to her: giant brown eyes staring down from a ghostly pale face, and the feeling of the wind whistling against her back as he threw her across the clearing. The _thud_ of a tree at her back.

“LET ME GO!” Rey screamed when she jolted awake in the belly of Kylo Ren’s ship and realized where she was. Han Solo’s erstwhile son didn’t. When Rey struggled out of the small bed she’d been carefully tucked into—her vision blurring with a burgeoning concussion, her limbs trembling—she fell to the floor, only to discovered she was locked to the wall with a heavy chain around her right ankle. There was a thrumming sensation coming from it, and the Force felt dead.

Her captor had dark eyes beneath his mask, Rey remembered clearly; hazel eyes that took on a sheen of red when the light hit them just right, exactly like the crimson-clad Twi’lek’s. When Kylo Ren stared at her, he was a bit too hungry in his gaze, and it made Rey shudder. It made her shudder because she knew that look.

Vader’s grandson was all ink and snow, his skin ghostly and his hair tousled. He made her feel small. Tall, he was—so much taller than her—looming over her like a shadow of death. He wielded his crackling red lightsaber akin to a mace, all primal movements mixed with brutal efficiency. He terrified her.

Rey had tried to escape on Starkiller—she really had—and she’d thought she could, but there was an ache in her chest. A terrible pang around her heart when she’d woken up in the interrogation chair, like a great hand squeezing. It had gotten worse when Kylo hadn’t been near; when she woke up on the ship.

She remembered the Twi’lek’s words then in the belly of the shuttle, and Rey thought maybe, **maybe** , she understood them. She breathed deep. She gasped. It was useless.

“I know where your parents are,” Kylo Ren had said over the roar of Starkiller’s destruction, and the Sith-in-Training had known exactly what to say to throw her off balance: to swipe her lightsaber out of her hand and knock the wind from her chest with the Force. Rey hadn’t felt much after the fall, except for the _thud_. There were memories there. Tangled bits and pieces that made no sense when placed together. A warm hand on her hair, cradling her head; the world spinning beneath her and an erratic heartbeat beating next to her ear. The scent of leather, the wetness of blood. It hadn’t been hers.

Rey didn’t know where they were, or where they were going, but Kylo Ren was hungrier than her, and a scavenger too. Rey could sense it, like the sand scraping along her skin over the silts of Jakku. There was an ache in her chest and a pain in her heart, and her memories were hollow. She felt faint.

“Please!” Rey begged, slamming her fists against the wall. Her breaths were ragged, and she couldn’t reach the door with her chain. Her captor didn’t answer.

_Kylo. Kylo. Kylo Ren._ The winds were full of ghosts, and he was a living one.

Rey remembered. She trembled at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note**
> 
> So I'm back-ish. I shouldn’t be starting another story, but Star Wars has (once again) totally wrecked me, and I need to get it out of my system.  _ Icarus  _ is gonna be a mixture of canon and legends—of the Expanded Universe and the main series—so for those of you familiar with Star Wars lore, you’ll find a lil’ bit of everything mixed in here. Hopefully it won’t get too confusing.
> 
> I dropped this story for a good long while, because I wasn’t really happy with where it was going, but after some major edits I’m back to finish it. A note on updates: they will be sporadic. I have three other fanfics in the hopper, and a novel that needs to get done by winter, so I’m strapped for time. For those of you looking for quicker updates, I apologize profusely in advance. I’d love to update faster, but I know I can’t manage it. A big thank you to  _ Trebia _ for beta’ing.


	2. Sybil, I See You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Revised October 23, 2017

It took five failed attempts at standing and ample amounts of screaming Kylo Ren’s name before Rey decided that she wasn’t getting out of _this_ , whatever this might be. It took falling even further out of bed, the sparse grey sheets tangling around her whip-thin limbs and accidentally bashing her head against one of the cot’s metal bedposts, tinnitus ringing in her ears, for her to decide that the concussion was bad. The fear was worse, however, so she didn’t stop. Rey never stopped, at anything.

Narrow, shaking fingers scrabbled at the cool metal around her ankle, all shiny and pewter. Nails broke and bled, but no matter how much she pulled, the strange shackle that deadened the Force wouldn’t come off. There was nothing near her to pry it open with; no stormtrooper whose mind she could dive into; no easy fix to make this A-Okay. The Force had always been there, Rey realized now—tingling like an ever-present warmth along her limbs—because being cut off from it was akin to being dunked in a tank of water. Or like drowning in air, when you were floating above an ocean.

Rey had never been dunked in a tank before. Water was so scarce on Jakku that she’d rarely had the luxury of a bath. Even still she knew the sensation of drowning instinctively, and as she lay there on the floor, shuddering convulsively, she could have sworn that there was fluid flooding her lungs. There was a sudden, crushing weight around her ribcage—the muffled sensation of cotton in her ears—followed by a constricting feeling that coiled around her throat. Rey couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t, and she was trapped there on that ship. For once she couldn’t get free on her own, and there was no one to help her.

The notion was terrifying. Immediately she began to panic.

Kylo Ren was near, but he wasn’t. Kylo Ren had kidnapped her, and Rey was chained in the belly of a shuttle for the simple reason that she’d stared at a Sith just a little too long. Her head ached terribly. As she curled around herself, her forehead _thunking_ against the cool metal floor, she began to gasp, her hands reaching up to claw at the fabric of her shirt above her heart. It hurt, her heart—like it was going to explode from between her ribs—and the pain from it was radiating outwards. In that moment, all Rey could think about was **her**.

She thought of the Twi’lek with the cold grey eyes and long black nails. She thought of the Lady with her red robes spiralling across the sand and her neutral voice speaking without inflection. Rey remembered a hand, smooth and tan against her face.

_Oh dear. The link is damaged,_ the Twi’lek had said. _You poor thing._

_Remember to breathe._

Rey couldn’t. Her limbs were seizing up.

Forcing herself to think of _escape_ , Rey managed to drag her hands away from her chest as she reached for her ankle a second time over, collapsing onto her side as she did so. Beneath her the thin grey blanket grey tangled into a knot, the ship’s floor shuddering with the hum of the engines. Digging at the clasp like a snared animal, Rey pulled until all her nails were broken; until her fingers were scuffed and her palms bled. The chain that was attached to it scraped against the edge of her cot as she did so, but no matter how hard she tried to escape, she couldn’t break free. The ship shuddered again, the walls rattling noticeably and a humming _buzz_ filling the air as the shuttle jumped into a Hyperspace corridor. When it did so Rey’s panic increased. She screamed then, and loudly, only this time is was wordless. Kylo Ren’s name was not needed to convey her fear.

Trapped. She was trapped and she didn’t know where they were going. She was chained to a wall, completely cut off from the Force. Her lightsaber— **Luke’s** lightsaber—was missing. Chewie was nowhere to be seen, and Finn was probably dead.

Rey didn’t like being chained. Always, they’d told her to run. _Run_ , they’d said when she was a child. _Run where no one can find you_ . Flee into nooks and crannies and burrow into the ribs of dead ships, picking away at bones. Hide in the wastes where they can’t catch a slip of a girl, and _tiny. Always so tiny, Rey my darling. We’ll just be gone for a bit._

_Rey,_ her memories echoed to her, dredged up like silt. She remembered a voice, different from that of her parents. _Rey, stop. Come here! Stop, you’ll get hurt_ —

_Lift me up! Up!_

_No. You’re too heavy._

_No m’not! You’re just_ **_lazy_** _._

Rey remembered that day in bits and pieces. She remembered _the Event_ the same way she remembered shadows; ephemeral pieces of time stitched together, like scraps of skin.

She remembered someone taller than her, their pale, warm hands cupping her face. Soft hair brushed against her cheek, her arms wrapping around their neck as they picked her up. Rey remembered the sound of a gentle heart, their pulse beating against her ear as she’d curled into the crook of their shoulder.

_Fine, I’ll carry you,_ the person had said. _But stay_ **_down_** _. They’ll be back in a bit._

They hadn’t.

They’d been gone forever, her parents. The gentle heart from her memories had disappeared as well. No one had ever come back for her except for Finn. Sweet Finn. Precious Finn. First Friend Finn, who had probably been vaporized along with the crumbling remains of Starkiller. Han Solo was dead, killed by that same erstwhile son who had sliced and diced Finn like a bloggin. They’d told Rey to run, but she hadn’t. Kylo Ren had kidnapped her a second time over. Rey hated him for it, but her heart hurt when she did.

Her lungs began to burn, her breaths shallow. Kill him. She was definitely going to kill him for what he’d done. For forcing her to be all alone once again. Rey decided right then and there she was going to drag the Sith down with her if it was the last thing she did, so she didn’t stop. She kept on tugging. Rey kept on clawing at the shackle well past the point of common sense, because that’s just what Rey **did**. Scavengers couldn’t be picky.

That was how Kylo found her, eventually. He found her squirming on the ground, her hands bloody and teeth clenched. Vaguely, Rey was aware of the fact that her cell seemed to be someone’s personal quarters of some sort. The room she was in was very small, lacking in windows and all but the most basic necessities. Her chain itself was a new addition, crudely melted onto the wall with something that looked like a lightsaber or a torch. Around her the _hum_ of the Hyperspace corridor rumbled throughout the ship, shaking the walls with minute vibrations. It echoed in time with Rey’s grunts of frustration, her chain clattering she crawled across the floor to the bed to try to lift the metal frame up and _off_.

She wanted to slip the shackle around the bedpost to see if she could break it, but the entire thing was bolted to the floor.

Along the ceiling the lights flickered, as if the power supply of the shuttle was failing. When the ship shuddered violently and the _hum_ of the Hyperdrive abruptly ceased—the whole room tilting wildly on an angle, before stabilizing—the lights went out completely, before switching to backup. Cool blue luminescence flooded the room along the seams in the floor, plunging the rest of the chamber into shadow. Rey worked faster. The dark. She didn’t like the dark. She was used to it, but she couldn’t stand it like this.

There was nothing but the hum of the backup generators for a moment, a queasy feeling rising in her stomach as the gravity on the shuttle fluctuated. The blue lights buzzed with energy, while the rest of the room became wrapped in silence, punctuated by the uneven clatter of Rey’s chain as she scrabbled at her bonds. The noise of the chain was so loud that Rey didn’t hear the uneven, heavy footsteps until they were almost at the door. She didn’t even know someone was there until she heard the _hiss_ of the entrance opening. The lights flickering with the sudden influx of power, before stabilizing again.

A low, keening moan of panic arose at the back of her throat when she realized **who** was there. Rey pulled in desperation at the shackle and didn’t look up.

Kylo Ren let out an expulsion of breath. Rey heard the shuffle of his uneven footsteps, staggering against the cool metal floor. She saw the hem of his tattered black robe that looked even more ghoulish in the low blue lights, heavy and thick and enveloping. The Sith stepped forward, and then again. A hand was braced to his side.

“Rey,” he gasped, taking another step forward. Hearing him say her name instead of “scavenger” was the most awful thing Rey could remember hearing; an instinctual, heady feeling steeped in _loss_ , like being sucker-punched in the gut with a knife. She shrunk away from him, her sticky hands scrabbling against the floor in her haste to put some distance between their bodies. Her fingers smeared red along the ground, the blood looking black in the low light.

“Rey, stop,” Kylo said. He reached for her, looming like a spectre. Rey curled up, her back hunching. She screamed in rage, her teeth bared. Moving as fast as possible, she scurried across the ground until her chain jerked taut, bringing her up short. Again she began to claw at it, and her captor took another step, ever advancing. Kylo Ren was limping heavily, one arm held close to his side. His helmet was gone, lost on the catwalk where he’d skewered his father. His dark hair was tangled around his face, tendrils of it sticking to his forehead with beads of sweat that glistened in the low light. He looked a mess.

“Rey,” he said, his words hissing through his teeth. Ren’s face was bisected by a thick red gash that went from his temple all the way down to his collarbone, where she had cut him. Even in the dark the skin around it was white as a sheet. Rey continued to mindlessly claw at her brace. “Rey, you need to stop. I can’t **think** —”

Beneath them the ship shuddered noticeably. The room listed again. Kylo Ren staggered, nearly losing his footing as the floor began to shift. Dark hair fell across his temple. “Stop, Rey. Stop. It hurts.”

**She** hurt. Everything hurt. Everything hurt worse now that he was in the room, her lungs clenching and her side spasming—the same side that he was clutching at. The thing that hurt the worst was her heart. It wasn’t just panic, this primitive, physical pain, and Rey didn’t know how to shut it out. Rey didn’t know how to stop him, or where to turn.

_I know where your parents are_ , he’d said as the ground had crumpled behind them, and Rey had paused, because _Mama_. **_Mama_**. She missed her mother so much it hurt. _I can find them for you_ , her captor had promised, and it had been enough to do her in.

Now that she was chained up, Rey didn’t care one way or another if he’d been telling the truth. He’d hurt Finn, and he’s killed his own father. He’d kidnapped her again. She was choking on panic, and _run, Rey. Run, my darling. You need to go where no one can find you_ —

_But_ **_why_** _?_

“Stop,” someone was saying, their words shuddering through their teeth. “Stop. It hurts, you’re hurting us—”

That black-clad hand was reaching for her again, looming out of the darkness. Kylo Ren was leaning down, his palm almost alighting on her arm.

Immediately Rey lashed out, swinging her weight backwards to dodge his grip, her free foot flying forward in an arc to hook around his ankle. Her captor went down with a _thud_ and a groan, the floor making a tinny _dinging_ sound beneath his weight as his elbow rapped sharply against the steel, bouncing off the surface.

The shuttle rattled. The lights flickered. Kylo Ren hissed in pain, his other arm still held close to his side. Rey didn’t even bother to get up.

She saw Finn in the snow, his back sliced open. She saw Han on the catwalk—the father she’d always wanted—dropping dead with a beam of light through his chest. Rey felt the pain in her heart and Ren in her mind—the utterance of _it’s alright, it’s alright, don’t panic,_ chanted like a mantra—and she hated him. She hated him as much as the people who had left her with Unkar Plutt. She hated him more than the parents who’d abandoned her. She was screaming. She was crawling **onto** him, clawing at Kylo’s face in a mindless fury as she tried to rip out his eyes.

Rage comprised her. Rage was her essence. Rey couldn’t feel the Force, but she could feel him inside her mind as she raked at his skin. Narrow, bloody hands pawed at an already bloody face; damaged fingers dug into the weeping, open gash that bisected Kylo Ren’s cheek, tearing it anew and prompting a roar of pain. Her chain tangled around their legs as they struggled with one another in the darkness.

When Rey dug her fingers past his skin, her own face flooded with agony. Her cheek felt like it was on fire, and Rey let out an involuntary sob in response. She reached down and tried to wrap her hands around Ren’s black-clad throat instead, to choke him. Immediately the Sith threw her off.

Hands much larger than hers came up, pushing against Rey’s arms. Hands much larger than hers locked around bony wrists and pushed her back, keeping her pinned atop him. Rey screamed, throwing her full weight against his in an effort to reach his throat. Her captor’s arms buckled briefly, but he still managed to hold steady.

“Rey,” he said in the semi-darkness. She shivered with fury. One of her captor’s arms finally gave way, and Rey managed to reach forward, pawing blindly at his face. She felt a high brow damp with sweat; a long nose and a wide, full mouth beneath that, the texture of his lips unnervingly soft. Rey dragged her broken nails across **all** of them, digging the sharp edges into his skin. She couldn’t see much in the low emergency lighting, just an approximation of a face surrounded by a thick tangle of hair. Something that looked like oil was smeared across Kylo Ren’s cheek, but instinctively Rey knew it to be blood. The scent of iron was strong, wafting up towards her nostrils, and the inside of her right thigh—where she was straddling Ren’s middle, perched atop his waist—felt oddly wet and sticky.

Kylo managed to grab her hand and push her back again. “Rey, stop. Stop. It’s **me** —”

Rey just screamed at him, her voice echoing uncomfortably loud through the chamber. Rey thought about how much she hated him, and when she did she felt that distinctive pain in her heart, like a great hand squeezing. She felt pain in her head that was not her own: crushing regret and despair.

“Rey, stop,” Kylo Ren gasped. Then, “Stop, just listen—”

All of a sudden there was a voice in her mind. **His** voice, slipping in as easily as sand beneath a window crack, as if it had always been there.

_Rey, it’s all right. It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s me, it’s alright_ —

Rey screamed louder. Around them the lights flickered at the sheer pitch. Rey leaned back, then forward, jamming her knee into her captor’s side towards the wetness she felt there. Kylo Ren let go of her, his back arching. His head _thunked_ against the floor as he coughed.

She rolled off him, gasping in tandem as her side exploded with pain. Her own hand flew to the same spot against her waist where she’d kneed him. Desperate to escape—and full of confusion—she tried to limp away from him on all fours. Rey felt her captor reach after her when she drew away. She felt his panic as if it were her own, crawling around inside her head like a worm. A gloved hand clad in leather closed around her forearm, trying to keep her in place.

“Rey, wait—”

She shook him off. When Kylo reached for her again, Rey turned around, her free hand forming into a fist as she blindly struck out into the shadows. She felt her knuckles glance against bone; a cheekbone, most likely. She felt pain blossom over her own face, a welt in the darkness, and his voice in her head.

_Rey. Rey, Rey, Rey, stop_ —

She didn’t know what was happening. She didn’t know why she could hear him in her head—why she hurt when **he** hurt—and she was scared. Rey gave up, crawling away from him as Ren coughed and gasped. She scuttled under the cot, shimmying beneath the metal bedframe until her back was pressed against the wall, as far as her chain would take her.

“It’s okay,” she heard the Sith say, his vocals rasping. “It’s okay, you need—you need to stop. I can’t think when you, when you’re—”

Wordlessly, Rey shook her head and curled up further, trying to make herself as small as possible. Frantically, she felt around in the dark for something to protect herself with, but there was nothing there.

Beneath them the ship trembled ominously. The queasy feeling in Rey’s stomach grew stronger as the gravity on the shuttle fluctuated, the lights _humming_ along the floor. Rey couldn’t see much from underneath the cot except for the blue floodlights themselves, along with a black blob near the bed that she knew to be Kylo Ren. The rest of the details were lost to the darkness.

Kylo Ren coughed. There was the wet _plopping_ of what sounded like blood being spat out onto the floor. The Sith’s boots scuffed against the ground as he managed to stagger to his feet. He pulled himself over to the bed, before he fell to his knees with a _thud_ once more, sagging against the edge of the cot.

“Rey,” he gasped. If she didn’t know better, Rey would have thought he was pleading. There was another wet, rasping cough, the air tasting even more strongly of iron as the Sith learned down, his hand braced to the floor as he prepared to peer under the bed. “Rey, come out. You’re too big to hide… to hide under the be–” He coughed again.

Rey heard another wet gurgle; she heard even more blood being expelled from damaged lungs. She couldn’t stand the sick feeling in her stomach, the pain in her heart and the weight of his panic. When Kylo Ren reached underneath the bed, his dark hair fell in a wave across his right eye, made even blacker by the lack of light. He peered around the rim of the cot. “It’s alright,” he said. “It’s alright, I feel it too—”

Rey screamed, lashing out with her free foot. Kylo Ren stopped and reared back to avoid her swing, but he didn’t go away. The ship’s shuddering became continuous, like it was falling apart.

“I’m going to take it off, okay?” he said, slumping briefly against the bed. His head disappearing back above the rim of the cot. “I’m going to… I forgot that you get scared when you… I’m sorry. Don’t run.”

His words were slurred and thick, like he was speaking through a mouthful of blood. Rey could taste blood in her throat too, but she wasn’t bleeding. Not like that. She didn’t know what the man was going on about.

Rey felt a mind that was not her own clinging to the dark spaces of her memory, all covered with cobwebs. In the absence of her own Force, her captor’s presence felt that much stronger. It was like seeing a lone, unstable star, warping and fluctuating in the nothingness of a void. Rey hated it. Rey couldn’t breathe, with or without him. The floor of the ship tilted beneath them, the emergency lights flickering. Kylo Ren dragged himself to his feet, taking the chain in hand and pulling it taut before there was the tell-tale, crackling _hum_ of a lightsaber igniting. A red glow filled the air.

Immediately Rey jerked back beneath the bed, letting out a moan of terror.

“Rey,” her captor began over the jagged, constant humming. “Rey, I’m just cutting it. I’m cutting it, stop **screaming** —”

She shook her head without meaning to. She shook all over, her breathing shallow. Stab her. He was going to stab her through the mattress and she was going to die alone and in the dark, just like the first time—

There was the smell of melting metal, followed by a dull snapping sound. Abruptly the hum of the lightsaber died off, the red glow dissipating, and the chain connected to her leg went oddly slack. Rey didn’t realize it had gone slack until her captor grabbed the falling end of it before it could clatter to the floor in pieces. Kylo Ren fell back to his knees, resting his full weight against the bed.

He gripped the chain in one hand, the ends still bright red and smoking. His deactivated saber was held in the other. All Rey could smell was his blood. Everywhere, he was bleeding.

Eventually Han’s erstwhile son began to move. Coughing wetly, like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs, the hand that was holding his lightsaber drew back, fumbling to hook it onto his belt. Once he had managed that task, Kylo Ren re-gripped the chain and began to pull, dragging the rest of it out from underneath the bed. The manacle was still attached to Rey’s ankle, and Rey’s leg went right along with it.

Immediately she began to fight him. Rey gripped the bedpost, wrapping her arms around it to try to stop the Sith from pulling her out from underneath the cot. Without access to the Force Kylo was too strong to throw off, however, even bleeding as he was all over the floor.

“Stop,” her captor said as she kicked at him, whimpering in panic. “Rey, stop. I can’t… I can’t think when you’re… when you’re… please.”

Rey felt her foot hit flesh and bone; she felt pain spike along her own knee, but Kylo Ren didn’t let go. His panic was crawling across her skin, intermingling with hers until she couldn’t tell them apart. There was a sudden gap—a hole in the mind that was curling around hers—and Rey felt it. Rey slipped **inside** , past his panic, and for a brief, infinitesimal second, she saw Kylo Ren’s thoughts, naked and unadorned.

Han Solo’s son was thinking about a hairless creature, bald and giant and dressed in black. Han Solo’s son was thinking about his father; about the way he’d looked so much older, and the feel of Han’s rough, calloused hand on his face before he’d fallen to his death. There was another thought there, more dominant than all the others; a recent memory of a small, whip-thin body crumpled in the snow. Kylo Ren was remembering the horror he’d felt when the person didn’t move; the sensation of fear that had flooded his brain when he’d picked that body up and felt how light it was. He was thinking of **her**.

“Stop,” Kylo Ren said as he pulled her closer. “Rey, stop. I can’t think when you’re scared. The shuttle… the shuttle, you need to stop.” His hand was firmly around her ankle now, dragging her out. Rey grit her teeth, clinging to the frame of the cot, but her hands were slick with blood. She slid away from the bedpost.

Rey screamed as loud as she could when Kylo finally managed to pull her out from underneath the mattress. She ignored his chant of _it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright_ ricocheting around in her head. Rey threw her weight forward, then back again in an attempt to break his hold, but Kylo Ren didn’t let go, even as she kicked and bucked and struggled. When Rey tried to reach for his lightsaber, one unnervingly strong arm wrapped around her front to hold her in place, the other gripping her hands. He covered them with one of his own in an attempt to keep her stationary.

“Stop,” he said. Rey felt warm, ragged breathes against her ear. There was a heavy head resting against hers in exhaustion, a broad chest pressing up against her spine. Her captor was definitely pleading now. Rey’s side hurt in tandem with his. “It’s alright. Rey, you have to stop. You’re hurting us. I can’t think—”

Kylo coughed blood, specks of it landing against her cheek. When he did, Rey remembered.

She remembered another shuttle very different from this one, and too much sand. She remembered huddling in the bones of an Imperial Walker, night after night; all alone and small enough to fit under the control console, unable to sleep due to the fear that the monsters of her memories would find her.

Rey remembered a time before that. She remembered warm hands on her face and big brown eyes and encompassing hugs. There was soft hair against her cheek, a large hand splayed on her back. Her arms were wrapping tight around a slender neck as the person with the soft hair picked her up. She loved being carried by them.

Rey remembered the smell of fire. She remembered burning.

_What’s wrong?_ she’d asked, and in her memories the sensation of her companion’s fear was overwhelming.

_Nothing_ , the person who was carrying her had said. Against her back, their hand had trembled. A familial kiss had been pressed against the side of her head as the person had adjusted their hold on her, hoisting her up higher. _Nothing. Things will be better soon, I promise._

_‘kay._

Things didn’t get better. The person didn’t come back. The rest of her memory was scattered, tossed about in fragments.

There was a gasp behind her, almost horrified in nature. Rey felt Kylo Ren let go as he seemed to shrink in on himself, his thoughts ripping themselves to pieces as his mind withdrew from hers.

Rey didn’t wait.

She didn’t think as she freed her arm and rammed her elbow into his face. Kylo’s head fell back with a sharp _snap_ when she hit him, his nose crunching as she hit cartilage. The Sith coughed and fell to the floor, his back bashing into the metal with a _thud._

Almost instantly Rey’s nose exploded with pain. She moaned, clapping her hand over her face, but she didn’t stop. Scrabbling away from her captor on all fours, Rey got to her feet, her hand frantically slamming down on the door latch as she stumbled into the hallway of the shuttle.

Around her everything was dark, the emergency lights flickering along either side of the corridor. The shuttle groaned and listed. The air felt strangely thin and stale, like the life support was off.

“Rey!” Kylo Ren called from the cell. She could hear him getting up behind her. “Rey, come back!”

She didn’t. She ran, straight into the darkness.


	3. Water In The Desert

“Rey,” he said, his voice bouncing raggedly against the bulkhead. “Rey, come back. Please.”

Rey shivered and squirmed further into the space between the shuttle’s piping, wedging herself between two oversized conduits as her gaze darted back and forth in the darkness. Fearfully, she searched for a shadow amongst shadows: the telltale, looming presence of _him_. Rey heard a wet, ragged cough, the sound of labored breathing echoing throughout the hold. Then in her mind she heard _it_. She heard his voice, slipping inside and sticking to her brain like sand on skin.

_Rey, it’s all right._

It wasn’t.

She could taste blood on her tongue and feel it crust between her teeth, even though she knew she wasn’t bleeding. There were bruises on her arms, and her concussion was bad. When Kylo Ren called her name again, Rey squirmed back further, trying to make herself as small as possible. Around them the ship rattled, the bulkheads groaning. The lights remained off, the air tasting stagnant and strange. It was getting colder – cold enough that Rey was beginning to feel her skin prickle along her arms, like it had on Starkiller with the snow – but she ignored it.

After she’d escaped Kylo Ren’s clutches, Rey had run the length of the ship. She’d staggered out into the pitch black corridor, blindly feeling her way in the dark, and the sudden sensory deprivation had been too much. It was a void: the lack of sight and smell and the tingling, ever-present reminder of the Force. Hyper-vigilant, Rey had always been – skittish, to the point of paranoia – and her inability to _feel_ had stricken her with a sense of terror so deep that she’d actually collapsed to her knees and nearly fainted right there on the spot. The only thing that had kept her going was her fear of Kylo Ren, which was greater.

“Rey,” he’d gasped. His voice had been the singular, omnipotent _thing_ in a field full of nothingness. “It’s alright, come back –”

Blind in the darkness and sobbing openly, Rey had struggled to her feet and kept running.

It had been akin to soup, wandering into the artificial night of the shuttle. The way the Force had been deadened made the lack of tactile sensation even worse. _Clank, clack, ca-clank_ the remains of Rey’s shackle went, the end of her soddered off chain dragging behind her. It was only then – with the bangle feeling cold around her ankle, her toes sinking between the slats on the metal floor – that Rey had realized that her feet were bare.

_Rey_ , Kylo Ren had said suddenly, and Rey ran forward in a blind panic, arms outstretched as she’d desperately searched for something – anything – to touch. She needed something to guide her way out of the pit. _Rey_ , he’d repeated, and her name had been spoken with unerring focus. _Rey, Rey, Rey, Rey._

_Come back. It’s all right._

She didn’t, but it didn’t matter. Sith were relentless.

The ship had rumbled. Rey’s breaths had quickened. Her heart had dropped into her stomach, her balance thrown off by the fact that she couldn’t tell what was up and what was down. When she’d heard Kylo Ren stumble into the hall, too close for comfort, she’d run forward until she’d struck a wall and almost knocked herself out. Fumbling against it with bloody hands, Rey had latched onto it. _Forward_ , the wall seemed to urge her, and Rey followed, clinging to it with desperation and running her hands along its smooth metal surface. She’d walked as fast as she could, but she had kept tripping over her shackle or tripping in the dark.

“Rey,” he repeated. Rey had heard him spit blood. He’d gagged like he was going to vomit. “Please, stop. I can’t – the shuttle –”

The shuttle groaned. Above them Rey heard the telltale _boom_ of the bulkhead compressing inwards. The ship was falling apart. She was trapped, lost in space with Kylo Ren.

“REY!”

Rey ignored him.

Periods of blackness were punctuated by occasional flickers of emergency lighting booting up along the seams in the floor. The blood she was dragging along the wall had turned black under the glare. Kylo Ren’s shuttle – from what Rey had been able to tell – was smaller than the _Millennium Falcon_ and infinitely narrower, but still bigger than she’d expected. It was designed for deep space and speed. The furnishings on the ship were stripped down to their bare components, the floor grated instead of tiled, the piping and internal wiring along the vessel’s sides exposed. The corridor itself was narrow enough that it made Rey feel claustrophobic; going straight for a bit before turning at a ninety degree angle, then straight again, almost as if the walkway itself lined the exterior of the ship and her room had been in the center of it.

After Rey fumbled forward for a few minutes in the dark – or maybe it was an hour, she couldn’t tell – she’d run headlong into a hard-edged ladder, leading up to the second deck. _Command center_ , Rey had thought instantly, her muscle memories providing the clues. Her thoughts were too fragmented to do anything else. _Command decks are always up top._

_Rey_ , Kylo’s voice had sounded, tired and resigned. Everything hurt. _Rey, you can’t –_

Rey had been unable to shut him out. Sniffling through her tears, she’d reached out and grasped the ladder, her thin hands wrapping around the bars. The sharp edge of the ladder’s steps had dug into her feet, and by the time she reached the top the soles of them were bleeding. Her arms were prickling painfully with the cold, and her breath was beginning to waft on the air, just a bit. The air itself was getting staler.

Above her there had been another _boom_ as a second bulkhead compressed, the ship shaking in tandem to Rey’s panic. The life support was failing. Crawling on all fours away from the ladder, her path illuminated by a sudden flicker of the emergency lights, Rey finally managed to reach out, grasping onto a conduit to pull herself up. Her shoes. Why were her shoes missing? Where had Kylo Ren taken them?

For the bottom of the ladder Rey heard a _thunk_ as the Sith collapsed against it; the rattle of the handlebars as he’d gripped them.

Rey kept walking.

The second deck was not really a full deck; more of a half deck with a half-circle corridor that curved along the length of it, before breaking into an open landing in the center. Through flickers of illumination Rey saw conduits snaking over the sides of the ship like interlocking veins. Towards the center of the corridor the walkway widened out, with a closed set of double doors on her left and a three-step platform on her right that led to another sealed entrance. The front appeared to be shut with a keypad.

_Cockpit_ , her mind screamed, even though she didn’t know if it was one for sure. Immediately Rey had rushed towards it, Kylo Ren’s heavy steps echoing throughout the hold as he started to pull himself up the ladder. Rey had clawed blindly at the cockpit entrance in an attempt to break in, her fingers running over the smooth joints before they alighted on the control panel, smearing blood across the pad. She didn’t have a blaster to shoot it open with and the Force was dead.

“Rey,” Kylo Ren gasped aloud, his feet _thudding_ against the metal ladder as he pulled himself up. Rey’s side convulsed with pain as he did, and she’d let out a mindless whimper of panic. Giving up on the keypad entirely, she’d shoved her fingers into the joint into an attempt to pry it open instead. As she did the ship shuddered around her, the floor listing sharply to the point where her feet began to slide. The lights had flickered off, then on, and the cold was becoming so sharp it felt almost painful. Kylo Ren had sounded like he was halfway up the ladder, his footsteps uneven and his breathing harsh. Rey had bit back a scream as her bloody hands had slipped against the crack, and when her captor had taken another step and she still couldn’t get the door open – the control panel beeping furiously at her intrusion – she’d stumbled back from it, falling to her rear. Her legs had gotten tangled in her chain and she’d hit the grated floor with a _thud_.

Mindlessly Rey kicked at her chain to try and free herself, staggering across the corridor to the other side to try and open the second set of doors. It wasn’t the cockpit, but it would do. Anything to put more distance between herself and Kylo Ren. Unfortunately the second set of doors wouldn’t open either. Another bulkhead had warped, sparks flying from the conduit as it did. The ship was tearing itself apart. A pained gasp escaped Kylo Ren as the ship tilted, and he’d hit the struts of the ladder at an odd angle. Rey’s side had screamed in pain at the impact, and she’d screamed aloud too, collapsing to her knees as she’d clutched at it. The right side of her face was on fire. All she’d been able to taste was the blood. Everything hurt. Why did it hurt?

“Rey, wait –”

Rey gave up on the doors entirely, and when Kylo Ren had emerged from the hole, she’d scrabbled to her feet and run in the opposite direction down the rest of the corridor. She hadn’t cared where she was going, so long as it wasn’t with him.

The corridor was short, and it was a dead end; she reached the back of it soon enough, her chain rattling loudly in the dark. Rey turned around in circles, looking left and right for an exit, but there was none. When the lights flickered on she’d seen the wall in front of her, full of wires and pipes. At the end of the corridor a large fan had been slowly spinning behind a ventral grate, creating a _woop-wop_ sound as it rotated. There’d been no door, but Rey was tiny, and had spent most of her life hiding out in the bones of dead ships. When the lights flickered again, she’d spied a space in between the conduits on the wall. It was too small for _him_ , but big enough for her. Immediately she’d rushed towards it. She’d ducked down and started squirming into the scaffolding, flattening herself and wiggling deep into the claustrophobic tangle of wires.

“Rey,” Kylo Ren spat, his voice bouncing raggedly along the bulkheads as she squirmed inwards. “Come back.” He was starting to sound upset.

Rey slapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from making a noise. Kylo Ren continued advancing forward. His footsteps were heavy, and definitely uneven. As he neared the dead end they became even more so. There was a sudden _thud_ as the Sith abruptly sagged against the wall, and Rey heard a wet, sticky-sounding cough. With each step that Ren took, the pain in her own side grew stronger. She felt like she was greying out, specks of light splattering across her vision. The ship groaned and rattled again.

Ren didn’t say anything as he neared her position. From her spot in between the conduits, she could see a long horizontal line of the hallway around knee level. It lit up in sickly blue, then died back down as the emergency lights booted off. Another flicker of the lights, then darkness. Nothing again.

The lights flickered a third time. There was something in the hallway with her. The Sith’s ragged robes passed like a cloud of vapor in front of her eyes as he came to a standstill, just in front of her head and a bit to the left. Rey bit back a scream.

“Come down,” he said, almost plaintive and definitely mindless. He didn’t seem to be speaking to _her_. The Sith didn’t look in her direction, but there was hunger in his voice: the fear of starvation. Even through her own fear, Rey knew that feeling all too well. “Re- come down.”

She could hear his voice cracking as he said her name. He wasn’t able to finish it.

Kylo Ren stood there for a moment, not moving. When her fear spiked he turned towards the conduit, but before her could do anything a droning klaxon sounded throughout the ship. _Beep, beep, beep_ it went, the flashing blue emergency lights reflecting the sheen of condensation building along the corridor. Rey shivered. Kylo Ren seemed determined to ignore the commotion, but as he turned the beeping got louder. A voice spoke.

“ _WARNING_ ,” the ship said, smooth and female and artificial. “ _WARNING, SYSTEMS FAILURE_.”

Kylo Ren finally turned away with visible reluctance. He started dragging himself back down the hallway, his gasps loud and strangled-sounding. Rey struggled to breathe with him. Sparks flashed as another bulkhead buckled. They were slowly being compressed by the denseness of space, and there was no escaping it. Not if she stayed in the corridor. Rey tried to breath through her terror, and it took a full minute for her mind to comprehend that Kylo Ren hadn’t found her. That’d he left her, and gone back to investigate the source of the beeping instead. For a brief, exhilarating moment, all she could feel was relief; enough relief for her to calm down and realize that Kylo Ren had opened the cockpit. That if she played her cards right, she might have a chance to escape.

Rey heard the uneven _beep-beep_ of digits being punched into a keypad, then the _hiss_ of the door as Kylo Ren opened the entrance. He was injured, and if she snuck up she might be able to kill him, Rey though. She **had** to kill him, if she wanted to leave.

_Bakka ja thu,_ she told herself. _Bakka ja thu. Remember the scavenger’s mindset._ She took whatever chances she could get. Fighting against her better instinct not to leave, Rey forced herself to think of happy things. She forced herself to think of Finn and Chewie and BB-8 and the now-dead-Han, and the sense of belonging she derived from their presence. Her vision swimming with tears, she pulled herself out of the conduit and fell onto the floor with a _thud_. Her pant leg ripping on a piece of metal and her elbow rapped sharply against the grate.

Down the hall the pale illumination of the cockpit’s controls lit up like malevolent presence in the dark, calling her towards it like a month. Very faintly – over the constant beeping – Rey could hear wet gasping breathes. Rock. She needed a rock to bash the Sith’s head in, or something heavy. Maybe something that could function a bit like a staff. Rey looked around herself and found absolutely nothing she could rip off the wall or scavenge that would be of any use. Her blood hands ran blindly across the grating as she searched for something to take him down before they landed on her chain, still attached to her manacle. Her **chain**. It was long enough and seemingly indestructible, sans lightsaber. She could strangle him instead.

She would.

There was a flare of concern at her murderous intent that was not her own, but the presence that lingered around the edges of her mind was weak and getting weaker, so she ignored it. Rey grabbed the end of her chain and began walking down the hall towards the now-opened cockpit. The air was cold, and much too thin; her breathes ghosting in front of her with each flicker of the emergency lights that refracted through them. Sparks scattered across the floor. A bulkhead visibly crumpled inwards, denting down in a _v_ and letting off a shriek. As the ship listed to the left, Rey braced her hand against the corridor’s side to keep herself from toppling over. Her feet were so cold she couldn’t feel them properly, and through the numbness she could see the sea of skin-bumps that had risen over her arms with the frigid air.

Smoke was rising from a ventral port on the other side of the hallway, and just in front of her were the opened doors to the cockpit. Rey couldn’t see much of the interior from where she was standing, but she was bathed in the cool glow of the control panels spilling into the hall. Her captor was shuffling about inside, and she could hear the erratic _beep_ and _boop_ of him fiddling with the console. When the ship rolled again, it did so sharply, the equilibrium inside the shuttle spinning out of control as if the ship was being violently pulled off course.

Rey lost her balance and slammed into the bulkhead, biting down on her tongue as she cut open her upper arm on a piece of metal and fought to stay standing. From the cockpit there was a muffled _thud_ as something heavy hit the floor.

Rey suddenly felt an _absence_. The lack of a dense, suffocating presence that had been wrapped around hers since she’d woken up in the interrogation chair on Starkiller. It it’s place came physical pain; an excruciating lack of air in her lungs, her muscles cramping. A new sort of panic flared to life that was nowhere near rational and completely alien, telling her she had to move quick or her mind would be ripped in two, torn apart by _loss_. Thinking of Finn – of how wonderful it had felt to have someone come back to her, only for that wonder to dissolve into horror as he was cut down by a Sith – Rey let her rage propel her. Her rage bloomed to life, warm and possessive, and that voice – that voice that had been meandering inside her head on Starkiller – came back, although it was muffled. It was almost as if her chain was dampening it. She had to move while she was still conscious and Kylo Ren was distracted.

_Kill him_ , the voice said. _Kill him,_ and Rey agreed. Her vision swimming with tears, her insides twisting with a sense of abandonment that she just couldn’t shake, Rey gripped her chain in hand and rushed into the cockpit, looking around herself for her captor’s tall, looming form.

Almost immediately she tripped over something lying in the entrance, falling flat on her face.

Rey’s chain clattered out of her hand as she fell. She almost banged her head against the console, her knees rapping sharply against the floor. Rey automatically put her hand down to steady herself, and when she did she found the ground was wet with blood. When she turned around to see what she’d tripped over, she spied a large, dark shape sprawled out across the floor. It was Kylo Ren, pale as snow and bleeding out. He was unconscious and seemingly dead to the world.

Rey stared at him for a moment, not comprehending what she was seeing. In the pale light of the flashing console Kylo Ren looked even paler. His features were drawn in an eerie way, his eyes closed and his wide mouth partially open, a trail of blood so dark it looked black trailing past his lips. His dark hair was spilling around his head to loop in inky wisps against the floor. The Sith was so big and the cockpit area was so small that he took up most of the available space on the ground, and for a second his unavoidable proximity caused every rational bit of Rey’s brain to shut down. For her to almost bolt out of the cockpit, because _Kylo_. Kylo Ren was there, and she could feel his blood on her hands. She could feel the fabric of his robe brushing against her calf, his gloved hand resting somewhere near her bare foot, his fingers absently knocking up against the underside of it.

Her hand to her chest, her mouth open as she gasped, Rey reached out with her foot to nudge the Sith in the leg, but he didn’t stir. He didn’t move in the slightest, and when Rey realized that Kylo Ren had finally gone down – and he wasn’t getting up – she didn’t waste any time. She scrambled over him and up into the pilot’s chair, her eyes wide as she frantically scanned the console.

It was unfamiliar. All of it was strange. Rey knew ships and part of the shuttle’s instructions were written in Galactic Basic, but the rest were in cryptographs. She’d never even seen such high-tech equipment before. Huttese or the Smuggler’s Cant would have been easier to manage, because at least those were languages she understood. Rey forced herself not to scream as she frantically scanned the console, running her bloody fingers over the buttons but not pressing down on them. Her broken-nailed fingers were throbbing with pain, and so was her face. In front of her past the rise of the console was the viewport, giving a glimpse of the outside world. Through it Rey could see nothing but space, with no nearby stars. There **were** stars, but they were all in the distance – innumerable and heavy, banding along the center of the galaxy where the constellations were the thickest. There were no nearby planets or asteroids that she could see with the naked eye, however, and they were drifting badly. The Hyperspace engine appeared to be dead. The only person who knew where they were was dying in a puddle of his own blood, and Rey was cut off from the Force.

_To hell_ _with it_. Rey decided she had nothing left to lose and pressed a button at random. An ominous shudder resounded through the ship – a reverberating groan – before there was a thunderous _thud_ from somewhere on the first floor, followed by a noticeable vacuuming sensation as the air grew thinner. In a panic Rey quickly pressed the button again, hoping that it would reverse the effect, but it did no good. The second button she pressed was a switch along the right side of the overhead console. The _Millennium Falcon_ had one that was similar – a switch that brought up the Nav Track – by Kylo Ren’s shuttle was not the _Falcon_ , and the power to the switchboard was dead, which was probably a blessing in disguise.

Feeling increasingly desperate – and watching that endless black void stretching out in front of her – Rey began to flip all the switches along the left side of the console in the hopes that one of them would work. Sparks shot up, causing her to duck and hide her face behind her arms. As she did her elbow hit one of the buttons in front of her. A blue haptic screen popped up in the center of the control console, and when the sparks subsided Rey realizes she was looking at a course trajectory map.

She saw nearby planetary bodies and the shuttle’s current location. Represented by a small red dot on the screen, the shuttle’s path curved sharply, veering far off course. They were making their way towards a nearby unnamed planet that was seventy parsecs away – a good five days without Hyperdrive. The **only** planet, Rey realized, and there were no moons nearby, either. Just a lone, solitary ball of rock floating out there in the middle of space, orbiting too closely around a dying blue dwarf star. Neither the star nor the planet were familiar – they weren’t in the database, and were pulling up an error – and in the corner of the screen a warning sign was flashing in Galactic Basic.

_WARNING,_ it said. _HULL INTEGRITY AT 71%_. Beneath that it said _WARNING, DISTRESS BEACON DEACTIVATED._

Fighting back the sick feeling that was rising in her gorge, Rey immediately leaned forward and raised her hand to the haptic display, intending to zoom out and find their overall location. When she tried to do so she discovered she couldn’t: the map was unresponsive. Hoping against hope that it was just the blood on her hands that was messing up the connection, Rey wiped them on her pant legs and tried again, swiping harder. She was met with a warning _beep_ and a very stern message that the console itself was locked.

“No,” Rey whispered as her eyes scanned the rest of the buttons, trying to find the main nav controls or even the comms. “No, no, no, **no**.” After pressing another dud – and more ominous shrieks coming from the first floor of the shuttle – she found the button for the main navigational computer and tried to pull it up. Another haptic screen rose in front of the Trajectory Route, flashing bright red.

_NAVIGATIONAL CONTROLS LOCKED. MAIN SYSTEMS LOCKED. PLEASE INPUT ID CODE AND BIOMETRIC AUTHENTICATION SIGNATURE_ , it said.

“NO!” Rey screamed, pushing back her chair and slamming her bare foot angrily against the console. It caused sparks to fly, the haptic screen flickering. Rey tried to breathe through her panic – the crushing sense of desperation that was flooding her lungs – only to taste blood in her throat.

Blood. Kylo Ren, bleeding out on the floor. Kylo Ren with a biometric signature and **his** code for **his** shuttle. Rey turned to look at him. Without thinking she launched herself off the chair and crawled over to his side. He was lying in the same position as before and looked even paler.

“Wake up,” she spat. She needed him to give her the codes to the ship. Afterwards she could kill him. Survival always came first. She slapped him across the face. “Wake up!”

Rey hated how afraid she sounded; how her teeth chattered with terror. Ren being unconscious did nothing to lessen the effect, and the sight of him lying there – the feel of his blood beneath her hands and the paleness of his face – made her feel nauseous in ways she wasn’t prepared for. It was alien, the disquiet, and it was mingling with an inexplicable sensation of _loss_. Rey tried to break into his mind after that. She got as close as she dared and tried to force her way in, just like she had before, but the Force felt dead and the world around her was muffled. She couldn’t get her manacle off.

When she couldn’t break into his head, Rey let out an involuntary sob and shuffled closer, her teeth chattering with adrenaline, her hands shaking as she began to pat him down, looking for a key or weapon. First along his sides, feeling across thick black wool. After that Rey reached for his belt, grabbing his lightsaber in an attempt to disarm him. Her fingers scrabbled with the clasp and she removed it from his hip.

“Ren,” she said, her jaw aching with the constant chattering of teeth. Her bloody hands slipped along the now-free device. “Ren, can you hear me?”

He didn’t – from the lack of movement that followed – and Rey sniffled pitifully, hating herself for what she was about to do. Throwing the lightsaber out of reach, she forced herself to reach out and put a palm to his neck to feel his pulse. She was so scared she nearly backed out at last minute, but then reminded herself he was already unconscious and that steeled her resolve. His pulse was weak. It was barely _there_ , and he was going to be dead in minutes. Fighting down her revulsion and failing miserable, Rey sniffled and gripped the side of his face – the good side, where she hadn’t cut him – before leaning her weight against his wound, to try and stem the flow of blood. Immediately her clothes turned wet, the redness seeping through the thin fabric. His blood felt warm against her belly, and it did horrible things to her head. The grief she felt wasn’t hers.

“Ren,” she sniffled, patting his cheek. _Just a bit longer_ , she told herself. Just a bit longer until she got the codes, and then she could kill him. When he didn’t wake up, she patted his face more violently. “Ren, wake up.”

He didn’t. Rey progressed to slapping him, then shaking, but he didn’t stir and his eyes remained closed. She gripped his face, her fingers spreading.

“KYLO, WAKE UP!”

As if in a fog the Sith’s eyes cracked open, like a pair of shudders rolling upwards on a broken pair of blinds. He stared blindly in her direction. A wet, gurgling rasp made its way up his throat, and the trail of blood slowly seeping past his lips increased. He looked so weak. Rey was too panicked by the thought of dying all alone in the middle of nowhere to remember that she was also afraid of him. She was too panicked by the sudden rush of pain that flooded her side when he jolted back into consciousness. Leaning over him, her chest pressed to his, her hand gripped the good side of his face in a vice as she shook him and tried to keep the Sith conscious.

“Kylo,” she said. When he responded to the name a second time – opening his eyes just a little bit wider – she said it again, her voice shaking with stress. Above them the console lights blinked. Her breath was ghosting on the air. “Kylo, can you hear me?”

Rey felt it, then. A mind curling around hers, but it was fractured and discombobulated. All Rey got from it was the vaguest sensations; pain and desperation, mingled with an odd sort of relief. When her captor’s eyes began to roll back in his head, Rey shook him again, putting both hands on his face. Her own burned in a numb sort of way when she touched the gaping wound on his cheek.

“Kylo, I need you to stay awake,” she said, feeling bile rise in her throat as she said his name. Like before the Sith responded to it, and Rey hated how he did. He didn’t deserve a name. He deserved to die, but Rey didn’t tell him that. When she thought of murdering him there was a flash of something akin to _sadness_ that skittered against her skull, but then the mind that wasn’t hers slipped away, fading fast. Rey went from gripping his face to cupping it, forcing him to look at her when his head began to lull. Her front was wet with his blood.

“Kylo, we’re going to crash. I need you to give me the control key. I need you to tell me your code.”

Kylo Ren tried to reach for her, his hand sliding up and across his front as it briefly brushed against her ribs, but he couldn’t manage any more than that. His eyes were completely unfocused. Rey fought the urge to shake him harder.

“Please Kylo,” she said, hating the way his name sounded on her tongue. Rey told herself that she could vomit later. “Please, we’re going to die, you need to t-tell m-me –”

The Sith opened his mouth as if to speak. Rey thought he might have been trying to say her name – she heard the faint echo of it in her mind – but all that came out was a stream of blood. He was choking on it, and suddenly Rey was choking on the redness too, collapsing on top of him as she gasped for air. It hurt. Everything hurt, and she felt like she was dying with him. She felt like she was being torn apart and in that moment all Rey could think about was Jakku and the scavenger’s mindset. _Bakka ja thu_ , they said in the local tongue. Survival came first.

“Medkit,” Rey gurgled, collapsing on top of him with her hand slipping down to feel his pulse. The pain was just too much, and she had to get rid of it first. “M-medkit. Where’s the medkit?”

Kylo Ren stirred beneath her at their proximity. He tried to reach for her again, his mind attempting to cling to hers. There was nothing spoken verbally. Nothing but the feel of his throat bobbing beneath her bloody palm. Then Rey heard it, whispering against her skull like the threads of a spider web.

_Room_.

Trying to think through the pain, Rey sprung into action.

“Which room?” she said. Her small hands slipped under a heavily muscled bicep as she tried to wrap her arms around his broad back. He was choking on his own blood, and she had to turn him over. “Kylo, which room?!”

It wasn’t a word she felt in her mind. More like an impression of him carrying something small and thin; of him gently lowering that something down onto a narrow grey cot even as his side screamed in pain and his breathing grew harsh. She’d had a concussion, and he’d put the med kit beside her bed. Her bed. He was thinking of her room, of **her**. The Sith had attempted to help her, but then something had tracked them to their current location and he’d had to leave it there.

Letting out a primal scream at the effort it took to move him, Rey clung to her captor and rolled him over, his hands scrabbling along his back and her bare feet slipping in his blood as she managed to pull him onto his side. The Sith’s head landed with a _thunk_ onto the floor and he coughed. Breathing became marginally easier, but maybe it was because of the numbness. Pulling herself away from her captor, Rey turned around, grabbing his discarded lightsaber and cradling it close to her chest as she staggered to her feet.

She felt Kylo Ren try to reach out with his mind. His panic at the loss of physical touch.

_Rey_ , he said, and Rey felt the sheer herculean effort that it took for him to form the thought into words. Everything was dark and he couldn’t see. He didn’t know where she was when she wasn’t touching him, and he didn’t want to die alone, either. _Rey._

Rey ignored him. She ran back into the hall and towards the ladder as she searched for the medkit. Behind her she felt Kylo Ren’s mind flicker off, the sensation of _him_ abruptly ceasing.

A bulkhead groaned, then buckled. Rey ran faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed, and a big thank you to my beta readers for helping me get this chapter into shape. The previous chapters have been revised, but not by a huge deal. As far as updates go: unfortunately I can’t promise regular ones until a couple other projects are squared away. I’m getting close to finishing them, but I’m not quite there.
> 
> Until next time! Happy Halloween, and have a wonderful October.


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